We were watching, of all the things, an episode of Cosmos when my friend remarked that Newton was so steeped in mysticism that if it weren't for the church we wouldn't have the great scientific breakthroughs that we did. I raised my eyebrows. Oh! one of these days I got to learn to smile, nod and walk away. He went on to aver that it is not just science, it was art, music and culture, the pillars of our civilisation and all modernity that wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the church.
Take a deep breath! Don't pop that vein.
Barring the simple fact that art and culture and science have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years before Jesus was born, that was a remarkably arrogant statement from a white boy who doesn't think that the rest of the world did anything of worth.
How do I say this without popping his western-centric bubble? People existed outside of Europe for millenia and some of these people weren't total savages. You know the scene where they scoop the brains out of the monkey head in Indiana Jones, that wasn't us. There were artists in the east; Japanese art for instance was so beautiful that it inspired artists like van Gogh. There were scientists in the east too; who for instance came up with numbers and they did things like Algebra. They also experimented with gun powder and rocket propulsion. Let's not forget the Egyptians and their long and rich history that included contributions like papyrus, written language and toothpaste .
But even if we were to assume that the non-western civilisations had nothing to offer, let us not forget that the Greeks pre-date JC by a few centuries. Aren't we forgetting Archimedes and Democritus, Parmenides and Plato? The establishment of Alexandrian library. If anything the establishment of the church delayed the ushering in of the modern era by a thousand years. The dark ages were called dark ages not for their fashion sense. Remember that the Greeks not only knew that the earth wasn't flat, Eratosthenes actually measured the circumference of the earth in 230 BCE. The church, with the collapse of the Roman empire became the top dog and was almost entirely responsible for the intellectual regression. That somehow by supporting Galileo (which they didn't) or Newton or Michelangelo, the church simply conjured civilisation is such a pig-headed statement as to demand ridicule.
I asked if one were to imagine an alternate universe where everything was the same in the world except that JC was never crucified and died a bitter old man who yelled at children to get off his lawn and the church was never established, what would the world become. And my friend, who from this point on I should just call white guy, said that he wasn't sure that we would have Newton's discoveries or Michelangelo's paintings. I say BULLSHIT. Is is possible to imagine a world without great scientific progress because the church didn't build cathedrals and universities? Yes, absolutely. But is it likely? Hell, no!
Men and women have had great wonder at the natural universe since time immemorial. And each generation has built on the knowledge of the previous generations to ask the big questions and take the big leaps. Really, when Newton said that he was standing on the shoulders of giants, he didn't mean the church. He meant the hundreds and hundreds of scholars, thinkers, tinkerers that came before him and paved the way for him to do what he did. Galileo and Newton, Michelangelo and Bach were products of their time and because the church was a strong presence in their universe, their talents found expression in the manner it did.
That is not to deny that the church had a great influence in the works of the masters; merely that in the absence of the church the masters wouldn't have ceased to exist but have found expression through other institutions. To state that if not for theology, there wouldn't be science is a gross misunderstanding. The wonder and curiosity to find answers to the central questions of our existence and our place in the universe is a defining feature of our species. It is incidental that this found expression in a religious path. Without religion, we would simply have followed another path.
And for you who still believes that the sun shines off the church's arse, go read a book. Or go to a museum.
Rant over.
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